Suicide attack on US forces claims one

Three suicide bombers in a furniture truck blew themselves up at the gates of a US Army base today, killing one soldier and injuring 14 others, the military said. It was the third suicide attack on American troops this week.

Three wounded soldiers were evacuated from the headquarters of the 82nd Airborne Division west of Baghdad to a combat hospital and the other 11 injured were treated and returned to duty, a military spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.

There were no US fatalities in the previous two suicide attacks this week, indicating that massive defences erected at American facilities were paying off.

Three Iraqis were killed in the truck that exploded today at Champion Base in Ramadi, 100km west of Baghdad.

The region around Ramadi and the nearby city of Fallujah is one of the most dangerous for coalition troops and sits in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where the majority of US deaths in hostile action have occurred since President George W Bush declared an end to major fighting on May 1.

On Tuesday, suicide bombers, one in a car and another on foot, blew themselves up at the gates of two US military bases, wounding at least 61 American soldiers but failing to inflict deadly casualties on the scale of recent attacks in Iraq.

Most of the soldiers were slightly hurt by debris and flying glass, indicating the defences around US facilities -- sand barriers, high cement walls and numerous roadblocks leading to the entrances of bases -- were having an effect.

At the same time, the decision of the suicide bombers to continue testing US defences reflected the tenacity of an enemy that seeks to undermine American resolve by inflicting mass casualties with a single strike.

Also today, the military reported one US soldier drowned and another was missing after a patrol-boat accident on the Tigris River in Baghdad.

"The soldiers were conducting routine patrols on the Tigris River when one of the soldiers fell overboard, and the other soldier jumped in to save him," the US Central Command in Florida said in a statement.

The incident occurred yesterday, and the drowned soldier from the US Army's 1st Armoured Division was found this morning, the statement said.

US soldiers said an Apache helicopter that crash-landed near the northern city of Mosul might have been hit by ground fire while making a low pass over the area.

A military spokesman had insisted that the helicopter was forced to crash-land yesterday because of mechanical failure and that the uninjured crew reported no ground fire. But a commander later said that he didn't know whether ground fire brought down the helicopter, from the 101st Airborne Division.

The Apache came down near a highway south of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, which has been the site of escalating anti-occupation resistance.

Troops guarding the site where the burned-out wreckage was still smoldering this morning said the chopper had been hit by enemy fire while flying over the area on a low-level patrol. They asked not to be identified.

"The helicopter was shot down," one said.

Brig Gen Frank Helmick of the 101st later said the cause of the crash was unclear.

"It could have been a mechanical failure but again, we are looking at all possibilities," he said.

Mosul was the site of the deadliest incident so far involving US forces. On November 17, two Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed, killing 17 soldiers. Although military spokesmen initially insisted that the collision was the result of an accident, officers have since acknowledged that ground fire was the likely cause.

Also today, Ghazi al-Talabani, director of the Northern Field Protection Force, which guards pipelines in northern Iraq, said an explosion set a pipeline ablaze, forcing officials to halt the flow.

He said the pipeline links the Beiji refinery in northern Iraq with the al-Doura refinery near Baghdad. A complex grid of pipelines move oil and natural gas throughout the region, and it was unclear how major the pipeline was.

An official of the US-led coalition, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said a pipeline between Beiji and al-Doura was hit "in an act of sabotage" late Tuesday or early yesterday. It was unclear whether the official referred to the same incident.

In Samarra, another volatile city 90km north of Baghdad, two members of the US-led paramilitary Civil Defence Corps were killed overnight by unidentified gunmen while on patrol, witnesses said today.